David Brooks Complains: Mitt Romney is "Non-Ideological Guy in an Ideological Age"

RUSH: Grab audio sound bite number three. I'm confused. We have here David Brooks. Rachel, do you remember David Brooks? He's a columnist for the New York Times. And he said, after meeting with Obama once I think before the election in '08, he's the guy who said that he was dazzled by the crease in Obama's slacks. And because of the crease in Obama's slacks, he knew that Obama was gonna be president, and, furthermore, that he was gonna be a good one. Okay, well, Brooks was on Meet the Press Sunday.

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No, I've not lost my place. Here's the David Brooks audio. You ought to hear this. This is the crease-in-the-pants guy. Where did he say this? Meet the Press yesterday.

BROOKS: Mitt Romney does not have the passion for the stuff he's talking about. He's a problem solver. I think he's a non-ideological person running an extremely ideological age, and he's faking it.

RUSH: Uhhhhh. okay. Romney is "a non-ideological person running in an extremely ideological age, and he's faking it." We're in an ideological age? I thought... See, this is why I'm confused, because I thought the GOP establishment -- and Brooks would be part of it. I thought the GOP establishment had been telling us that we can't be ideological. We can't be, because if we're ideological we won't get the independents. The independents don't like ideology.

The independents don't like "conservative" and "liberal."

That's why they're independents.

We're in an ideological age and Romney can't do it?

Isn't that why you told us he'd be the best nominee? Am I wrong? Am I missing something here? Isn't that why Brooks and others told us we had to nominate Romney, precisely because he wasn't ideological and that would be necessary to get the independents and then win the Senate and so forth? And now it's an ideological age. Yes, it is. It's an ideological, highly opinionated age. Look, folks, I'm not doing purposeful See, I Told You So things here.

I'm just reminding you: How many times have I wished that everybody looked at things ideologically? That's how Obama would properly be understood. I'll give Brooks one thing: If Romney would go ideological in explaining Obama, it would help. We gotta stop the, "He's a nice guy" stuff. "Nice guys" don't do what Obama is doing. "Nice guys" don't say and do and act the way Obama is saying, doing, and acting. Of course it's ideological! It always has been ideological!

What is the left if nothing but strident ideology? But it's these guys like Brooks that were telling us all during the primaries and in the days leading up to it that we shouldn't succumb to the temptation of ideology. They said the era of Reagan was over. What's the era of Reagan? Conservatism! We can't do that. Independents don't like that. Now all of a sudden Romney can't pull it off?

Well, isn't that why you told us he's the best guy?

That's why he could win, in fact!

Isn't that what we were told?

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By the way, here's Brooks. I want to go back to David Brooks. We just played the quote of him saying it's ideological out there; Romney's not ideological, and he's faking it. Here's Brooks writing in October of 2011, a year ago: "The central problem is that Mitt Romney doesn’t fit the mold of what many Republicans want in a presidential candidate. ... They don’t want Organization Man. They want Braveheart. The question is: Are they right to want this?

"Well, if they want an in-your-face media campaign that will produce delicious thrills for the true believers," i.e., if you want an ideological conservative, that's what he thinks of us, "they are absolutely right. But if they actually want to elect an effective executive who is right for this moment, they are probably not right." So a year ago Brooks was writing in support of the Romney that we have right now.

A year later, Brooks writes of his unhappiness with the Romney that we have right now. If I were Romney, I'd tell these guys... Well, I don't know. The Romney camp can do what they want.